


1 of 365

by Akame_no_Youkai



Category: Twisted-Wonderland (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Leona's mother, birthday fic 2020, inspired by various card stories and lines, weaved together with headcanons and love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25548640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akame_no_Youkai/pseuds/Akame_no_Youkai
Summary: For only one day, out of three hundred and sixty five days a year, Leona Kingscholar wanted things to be different.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 41





	1 of 365

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place a year before Leona attends Night Raven College - as other first years in NRC are aged 16, Leona is 15 here. See end-of-chapter notes for more detail.

Just for today.

For only one day, out of three hundred and sixty five days a year, he wanted things to be different.

Every year he wished for it, and yet it was always too much to hope for.

Leona hears voices, and he feels a flash of hope, but it fades as the voices grow more distant, moving away. Though he’s the one who ran away and hid in the gardens, part of him hopes for someone, anyone, to come looking for him.

He starts counting in his head, counting the seconds, the seconds into minutes that he stays hidden, and wondering what number he’ll get to when he’s found.

Because at least being found means he gets his birthday back, it means he’s wanted, even if it means being brought to his father for another lecture, to face his brother’s affectionate exasperation, to deal with the nobles’ and guards’ barely-whispered comments, loud enough for him to hear. _What a waste of time. Aren’t there more important things to do than this? Just give him the bare minimum. It’s not like he matters._

It feels like there’s a hand in his chest, squeezing his heart when he thinks about the words. Was it really that selfish of him? Just for one day, he wanted things to be about _him_. No one else.

The glass doors leading into the garden creak suddenly, and Leona’s ears flick upwards, and it only takes him a second to place the scent, to identify who’s found his hiding place. The person doesn’t call out for him, though, and simply walks through the undergrowth to head towards him, and Leona stiffly turns away as the newcomer emerges, spotting him where he’s hidden himself between a bush bigger than himself and a wall, and stepping to kneel down next to him.

“Hello, Leona.”

Even at the sound of her voice, Leona finds himself relaxing, some of the fury melting away. It’s never been her that he’s angry at, after all. “Hey, Mom.”

She doesn’t reach out to touch him, and instead her tail flicks to brush against his, a small gesture of goodwill. And for him, such actions are enough, more than what words of praise and grand expensive presents will ever mean to him. “You really like coming here to the gardens, don’t you?”

Leona doesn’t look over at her, but he sees the edges of her pristine white and gold gown pooled around her feet, stained with dew and stray leaf, dirtied from her trek through the undergrowth. If it were anyone else looking for him, be it a guard or his father, or even Farena, they would not have strayed off the path to reach him, only called for him. Only his mother ever took the extra step to chide him, to understand him and stay by his side.

“...Mm.”

“Why is that?” She doesn’t seem bothered by his short reply.

“...I don’t know.”

“Well, _I_ think it’s a nice place to be.” His mother’s voice is cheerful, and her tail rubs soothingly at Leona’s back. “No voices, no business chatter, just the sound of nature. It feels less stifling, don’t you think so?”

“...I guess.”

His mother chuckles softly, unruffled. He supposes she’s used to dealing with moody teenagers as it is. “It’s not bad to spend a birthday here, as long as it makes you happy. A birthday isn’t complete without a present, though.”

He glances at her suspiciously, and she grins at him. “Turn around.”

Doubtfully he does, and he waits, his tail flicking incessantly, not with impatience but with skepticism. Something gold and multicoloured passes his field of vision and Leona looks down in surprise at the necklace that now rests on his chest, cold against his skin.

“This is…”

“I know it’s quite similar to the other royal accessories you have.” Leona’s mother sounds apologetic as she closes the latch of the necklace and lets it go, smiling when Leona turns to face her, holding up the chain in his hands. “But I’m hoping this one is a bit more special to you because I chose it for you.”

She’s right, to be honest. It looks a lot like what he already has, with glittering gems on it characteristic of the work of the royal goldsmith, and it looks much too long, too, currently reaching down to almost his stomach. Leona can’t bring himself to complain, though, because she’s right about that, too: it feels special because she gave it to him.

“Listen to me, Leona.” Her voice suddenly serious, his mother takes him by the shoulders and he looks up at her. She hasn’t asked him any of the usual questions one would ask after giving a present, like _what do you think_ and _do you like it_. She must know that such words and questions are pointless to him. 

“Things will probably get hard. Even harder than they are now. And you’ll get upset, but that’s fine. It’s okay to be upset over things you can’t control, or things that don’t go your way. What’s important is to stay true to what your heart wants.” She tilts his head up to make eye contact with her, fixing him with a stern yet kind gaze. “Do you understand?”

“...Yes, Mom.”

“Good.” She smiles sadly and rubs a thumb over his cheek, just over the edge of his scar that cuts through his eye like a bronze scythe. “I worry about you, you know. You’ve made up your mind to go to that school next year, then?”

Leona nods.

“Alright. If that’s what you really want.” She brushes the hair out of his face, her expression a mixture of worry and affection. “There’s a lot of things I want to tell you to do while at school, to be honest. Make lots of friends...study hard, and don’t be lazy...but I think the most important one is that I just want you to be happy.”

Leona glances down at the necklace he now wears, touching the edges of the gems with his fingertips, where the warmth of his mother’s hands still linger. There’s a lot of things he wants to tell her, too. How he doesn’t get along with his father, how he hates his brother, how he despises being at home and would want to be as far away from here as possible, and for as long as he can make it. Being there will mean being away from her, the few people who make his life at home bearable, and it gives him a twinge of sadness.

But today is his birthday. One day out of three hundred and sixty-five.

Just for today, he’ll be happy. “Okay.”

* * *

Just for today.

For only one day, out of three hundred and sixty five days a year, he knows things will be different.

After breakfast at the cafeteria, Leona heads straight to the gardens, giving Ruggie instructions not to bother him until lunchtime, in which he is to bring him his usual lunch order, and to under no circumstances disclose his whereabouts to the teachers. 

Today, of course, things are different, and he starts counting in his head, counting the seconds, the seconds into minutes that he stays hidden, and wondering what number he’ll get to when he’s found.

Within the hour the garden is filled with people, those within Leona’s expectations, like Ruggie and Jack who are holding a big birthday cake topped with candles, the prefect and the furball from Ramshackle dorm, the other students from Magift club, even the baby-faced pipspeak from Pomefiore dorm. And there are those he doesn’t expect, either: Kalim and Jamil from Scarabia dorm, Sebek from Diasomnia dorm grudgingly delivering a birthday card from an uninvited “M.D.”, a present delivered from Ignihyde dorm, the sly trio from Octavinelle dorm, and more that he doesn’t realise gave a single care in the world about his birthday.

Leona snaps and growls and complains, and he smiles, too, when a flower crown is dumped on his head, and colourful packages of all shapes and sizes are shoved into his hands, and people around him chat and laugh, there because they want to be, not because they’re forced to.

It’s not his first birthday without his mother by his side, and it probably won’t be his last. But he can still feel her there, in the necklace he wears beneath his shirt, pressed between the fabric and his skin, warmed by his heartbeat.

Just for today, things _are_ different.

Just for today, he’ll be happy. 

**Author's Note:**

> Most things I’ve written here are only inferred from cards’ personal stories or completely made up and are not canon. My assumption that Leona has a relatively good relationship with his mother is inferred from the fact that he greatly respects women, as is custom in his home culture, and that he refers to his mother as “ofukuro” in Chapter 3 (part 25, when Ruggie chides him for leaving his stuff lying around), which is generally an informal term men use to refer to their mothers, indicating a great degree of familiarity. What we know about Leona’s necklace comes from Jack’s SSR personal story, where Ruggie loses one of Leona’s necklaces - it’s a “super long” and “royal” necklace that he likes, and he “always wears it”. While I doubt this is the necklace he wears in his usual dorm uniform, since Jack lies about polishing gems on it, and the longer necklace Leona wears clearly does not have any gems, for the purpose of this story I’m assuming he does wear it all the time, as he and Ruggie both state this. The reason I think this particular necklace is important to him is that Leona doesn’t smile (obviously) throughout the scene in the personal story when he asks Ruggie where it is, and if it didn’t matter to him much anyway, when Jack showed up with the necklace, Leona could have just been nonchalant about it, but instead he does smile when Jack explains that he was just taking care of it under Ruggie’s orders and gives it back to him, and to me this may indicate some form of relief.
> 
> My assumption of Leona’s fixation on sleeping in the gardens is not linked to any canonical reference. I’m only making it up since it seems a bit odd that Leona could very well just sleep in his own room at the Savanaclaw dorm, instead of at the garden where other students could potentially come and bother him, so it’s possible that sleeping there is important to Leona somehow, that it’s more comfortable and makes him feel secure. Similarly, my headcanon is that Leona is a repeater at school because it means he can’t graduate and go home yet, thus minimising the time he needs to be at home and can stay away for as long as he can possibly make it.
> 
> It should be noted that we know basically nothing about Leona’s mother ingame and so what I’ve written here is not canon.
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please feel free to follow me on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/Sicarius130)!


End file.
